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About that advisory board

November 26, 2008 1:56 pmNovember 26, 2008 1:56 pm

Too big to fail?

A thought I’ve had: there have been some complaints from movement progressives about the centrism/orthodoxy of Obama’s economics appointments. To some extent this was unavoidable, I think: someone like the Treasury secretary has to be an experienced hand who can deal with Wall Street, and I haven’t heard anyone proposing particular individuals with clearer progressive credentials to hold that position. (And for those of you wondering about yours truly — I’m temperamentally unsuited, have never had any desire for the job, and probably have more influence as an outside gadfly than I ever could in DC.)

But the Obama administration’s new economics advisory board would seem like a very good place to give progressive economists a voice. There are a number of excellent people whom Obama might not want to put in line positions but would be very much worth bringing in to offer well-informed alternative views. At the risk of insulting those I forgot to mention, I would think immediately of James Galbraith, Larry Mishel, Dean Baker, Jared Bernstein.

Let’s see whether progressives do in fact get a seat at this particular table.

For the record, I’ve never thought you should be doing anything other than what you are already doing, if not somehow expanding upon your winning formula. Just from reading your work and watching you on t.v., I can see you wouldn’t be comfortable in a bureaucracy. Astute observers and thinkers rarely are. Your creativity will be stifled.

Hahahah, “too big to fail?,” excellent caption. I hope the O team is reading your suggestions. I know you’ve said you’re unfit to serve in a position like this, but I’m not alone in wishing you could contribute in a consulting role or something like that. Serve your country, Krug, we need ya!

I hope progressives like the ones you named do get a seat at the table. Paul Volcker makes me very nervous. I was hit pretty hard by the 1982 recession. Volcker may have stopped inflation but there was a lot of collateral damage. Does he have a grasp of what needs to happen to stop a recession instead of starting one?

Paul : In your book “peddling prosperity”, you had questioned the credentials of Galbraith Sr. as an economist. In fact, you called him a “policy entreprenuer”. And you praised JFK for not taking him too seriously. Now, you dont seem to have any qualms about his son James Galbraith, who very much shares the same economic views as his dad.

Here’s the bigger problem with the appointments than perspectives that hit all points on the political spectrum…there are people out there that have been right about this economy for quite some time.

Simply ask the EPI…just ask.

Also, please don’t get me started about the fact that no Secretary of Housing has surfaced. That’s almost as eerie an omission as the preceding Secretary’s ouster not being seen with the weight it deserved. Foreclosure rates rivaling a Depression, and the Cabinet official overseeing that area for the Government gets ousted…yet I bet not ten of these very intelligent readers know why…and a replacement nowhere on the horizon.

I wonder if the “progressive” Professor Krugman is still so enthusiastic about confiscatory taxes on the wealthy now that he is a millionaire from his Nobel award in economics? Or will he find some way to protect his earnings as the other wealthy individuals will do…

James Galbraith, Larry Mishel, Dean Baker, Jared Bernstein.
Some of those folks might prefer a more fun and less demanding role – something like “outside gadfly,” which sounds like a pleasant combination if high influence and low accountability. Although some outside gadflies probably have term papers to grade, which I suppose would keep them pretty busy…

Like you, I long had the expectations that finance and foreign policy would have a notable absence of progressives. I just hope we see them in places where we could really use some drastic change like education, environment, energy, agriculture, etc . . .

I supported Obama’s candidacy because I concluded that his intelligence and pragmatism would ultimately win out over his historically progressive economic notions. And that appears to be the case from these recent appointments. I’m optimistic about our chances for making real progress on this crisis and feel that such promises as a repeal of the Bush tax cuts will sensibly be discarded. How nutty would it be to raise taxes on the rich when 75% are small business owners who create 50-70% of the new jobs in this country???

The comment in an earlier post typifies one of the dangers in dealing with our current situation. As with Volker’s defeat of the inflationary spiral, we are not going to expeditiously escape this recession without significant collateral damage. But our best hope is that we can channel have that damage borne not by the rich, who can most easily afford it (the knee-jerk progressive solution) but rather by those most deserving of picking up the tab for this mess, e.g., homeowners who lied to qualify for home mortgages, mortgage brokers who employed predatory lending practices, financial execs who authorized the use of excessive leverage, consumers who took on more debt than they could afford, etc.